Tuesday, April 15, 2008

cousins!!

we went to keller on friday night to visit brian's brother and family. my kids love to see them, and they always play so well with each other! i really missed having cousins that were close when i was growing up. that's why i try to foster a good relationship between my kids and their cousins. they are our best friends, and the kids favorite people to play with (all the cousins, not just phillips kids!). family is such an incredible blessing.
here is zach with sarah, who is about 6 months older than he is. he had the time of his life driving this jeep... thank goodness they didn't crash! there were a few near misses.
here is mary, who is 6 months older than kenzie, with lauren, who is 6 months older than audrey!!
lauren loves to hold kenzie. every time we go over there, she always asks to hold her, though now kenzie is almost too big to hold.
audrey, sarah, promise (age 6), zach, kenzie, and lauren. they are watching a movie.
kenzie and promise

Saturday, April 12, 2008

baby ethan

please be praying for one of my friends from college, kasey krawiec. she just found out that her 11 week old baby, ethan, has a very rare form of luekemia. check out her blog, baby ethan, under my blogging friends section. then don't forget to pray!

Thursday, April 3, 2008

big news for kenzie

well, this week has been an emotional one to say the least. makenzie, who is now 9 1/2 months old, is officially weaned! i started on sunday, after attempting to nurse her for 45 minutes. she is just at that stage where she wants to watch what is going on, and doesn't want to stop to eat. and who has 45 minutes on a sunday morning to try to get one of her children to eat? not me. i've been wanting to do it for a while now, because of the distraction thing, but part of me remembers when i did it with zach at 6 months. i gave him formula, and that is when we found out that he was allergic to milk, because his mouth, tongue, and eyes swelled up to dangerous levels. part of me was afraid that kenzie would be allergic too. i also remembered that there was a day or two where he would barely eat, because he didn't want the bottle, and i didn't want that fight. so sunday was the last straw. there were many tears shed, because she took very little the first day, and only a little on the second day. but, thank the Lord, she is doing great now and actually smiles when she sees her bottle coming. i call her my little "love bug". she is all over the place and pulling up on everything. here she is on one of her favorite toys.

here she is with adoring big sis. please be praying for audrey. and for my temper. she has fallen back into peeing in her pants- we are now up to 2-3 times a day. i don't know what to do. i've tried rewards (good ones!) sticker charts, getting in trouble, ignoring it.... i am at the end of my rope!!!!! i told her the next step is that she will have to start wearing pull ups again, and she doesn't want to do that, but she already peed in her pants today... any expert advice????
and also be praying for zach. he has been almost out of control lately. crying about everything, whining, and more crying. i don't know what is wrong with him, and not much seems to help him either. i think that he has a couple of cavities, and has an appointment with the dentist on monday, so i am hoping that maybe his teeth are hurting and can be taken care of. i know that sounds awful, but i don't know what else it could be! i just love my kids, and want to do the best i can with them, but right now i feel like a failure- i quit nursing, my 4 year old pees in her pants constantly, and my 2 year old cries and has tantrums about everything!!!!

Friday, March 28, 2008

frugal friday

well, my friend lori, also known as the bargain shopper lady, is doing a blog on frugal friday. she asked me to write a bit about my latest bargain shopping experience... i haven't done any of the specials that she wrote about, but i did find a cute photo album for 3.49 (reg. price 14.99)! it is my favorite kind of album because it has the lines to the side of each picture so that you can write the names of people or events to the side. i also got a lot of tissue paper for .44 cents each (reg. price 1.50)

next i went to lori's blog and printed off a couple of coupons... then i went to victoria's secret and bought a lollipop for 1.50 and got a free body scrub. i also walked next door and bought a purse sized hand lotion and got a free regular sized lotion!
today lori talked about the crazy cvs deals that she gets, and i think i finally understood for the first time how she does it. i'm going to try it soon! Thanks for helping us save (or if you're like me, trying) to save money, lori!!!!

also, if you are like me, you are struggling with potty training, getting chores done, etc. i found a great website today that let me print out fun charts for the kids to keep them on track... check it out! it is called printable checklists. let me know if you think they will help you in your day- to- day chores!!

Thursday, March 13, 2008

makenzie's first crawl, dishes, and easter bunny


she is now doing it all the time!! she sees zach with something, and goes for it- it is so cute to see them starting to interact a lot more. she is also starting to pull up to her knees. she is still a wonderful baby!!

crawling in action

here's the scene i found a few weeks ago when i walked into the kitchen... audrey and zach were washing the dishes in the sink. unfortunately, most of them were already clean! they had pulled a chair from their little table over to the sink, and were standing on the same one. it was so cute. big helpers!

we were at the mall and didn't know the easter bunny was there. the kids loved him. kenzie did really well until the end when she looked up to see who was holding her and then looked back at us like, get me away from this thing!

Thursday, February 21, 2008

dinner at the mcclures

no big story this time, just wanted to share a couple of pictures of my love bugs.
kenzie is now sitting in a booster seat at the table with us. she absolutely loves it. she is almost crawling, too!! zach is now in his toddler bed. he finally figured out how to climb out of it. he's doing pretty good, but i think last night he had a bad dream, because he was up walking around at 2:30. when i put him back in bed, he was saying something about not liking the dogs fighting. it was so cute.
audrey, our little princess. she's doing good. she is going out with brian today for a little date. it is all she can talk about. he takes her to barnes and noble and they eat oreos and drink water, then go read books. she loves it!! today on the way to school she was asking me questions like "when he comes to get us, is God going to take just the people or will He take the planet too?", and "how old is Jesus?" she asks a lot of questions about God and Jesus!
poor zachy, he's been having a lot of breathing problems. i had to get a picture of him taking his breathing treatment.


Monday, February 4, 2008

angelfire

well, last sunday night, brian and i were laying in bed trying to decide what to do on monday for our family day. brian looked at me at 11pm and said, lets go to angelfire! so of course i said yes! we got up the next day and packed up and left for new mexico right after lunch. brian's mom and stepdad live there, and they have a house and a condo, so we got to stay in the condo right at the base of the mountain. it was a 6 hour drive to amarillo, where we stayed for the night, then got up and finished the 5 hour drive to angelfire. it was so beautiful there- snow was everywhere. we set up audrey and zach in the back seat with a portable dvd player... they did pretty well. that left the middle seat with kenzie open, where brian and i took turns playing with the kids and driving. here they are enjoying a movie. kenzie did pretty well. she didn't like sitting in her seat for long. i had to sit back there and nurse every few hours. i know, we didn't pull over to do it. i just prayed really hard that we would be safe. next time we take a trip, though, i won't have a nursing baby.
here's mimi and makenzie in front of a little cafe that we had breakfast at one morning.
here we are eating breakfast with mimi, papa henry, and uncle ryan.
zach was pretty sick with allergies the whole time we were there. i forgot to take his singulair, and we even had to call our pediatrician to get more albuterol for his wheezing. they loved seeing the snow. zach didn't like it when he stuck his hand in it, though. he just cried and cried because his hands were so cold. we didn't have the proper attire... next time i'll try to find snow boots and pants that are waterproof!
audrey walking in the snow.
since she first found out that we were going to see snow, she wanted to make snow angels. she saw that on a cartoon once... and she finally got to make one of her own!
my in laws home was awesome. almost the whole front is windows, and you look out and see the snow. there is a pack of 9 elk that come and eat hay right at their doorway. here are 4 of them. it was so beautiful to watch the snow falling!
it was a pretty sleep deprived trip- zach is used to his crib, so since he was in a bed, he kept getting up the first night. finally brian and i decided to switch the sleeping arrangements. so brian slept with zach, and i slept with audrey and makenzie. that stopped zach from walking around, but boy did i find out that audrey talks in her sleep a lot! i didn't sleep well, but kenzie did fine because she is used to it. finally on the last night, i decided to sleep on the couch to try to get some rest for the drive, but the couch was too short to get comfortable, so i didn't end up sleeping well after all. anyways, it was funny how it all worked out. on friday brian went snowboarding and had the time of his life. he's been a few times and this was the first time that he was actually able to do it. i didn't go skiing, because fo the nursing thing... next time!! we also went to red river one day and visited my old friend sarah. we've known each other since we were probably 8 or so. she has an almost 3 year old set of twins, and a 1 1/2 year old set of twins, so it was a lot of fun!!